Columba’s Bones is a ’bloody’ good read.
This is Scottish playwright David Greig’s first book and what a hell-raising, rip-roaring, gruesome but fantastical grim but beautiful joy it is, to lose yourself in its pages.
Gird your loins and go for it.
Currently the Artistic Director at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre, Greig’s plays have been performed widely in Scotland and around the world, including Midsummer, The Events, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Local Hero, and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart but now the pages of Columba’s Bones herald his voyage into the new land of authordom.
In a bloody, brutal raid on the Isle of Iona, 825. Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland.
Following a night of rampage and mayhem, one Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone, hungover, and abandoned by his crew mates.
Grimur can’t swim, there are no boats, and the only surviving monk on the island has taken his sword. With only his wits, he must survive long enough not only to rejoin his Viking comrades, but also to find the location of the elusive relics that brought him here in the first place.
Rooted in the real history of Iona and its early monks, Columba’s Bones is an utterly unique and thrilling read, exploring the clash of early Christianity and paganism, and expanding into a sharp, witty meditation on philosophy, redemption, shame, violence, love, transcendence and reality.
Sally Magnusson loved it so much she acclaimed it: "Stupendously earthy, laugh out loud funny in places, visceral writing"
It is so good it was shortlisted for the Bookmark Book Festival Book of the Year 2024.
Published by Birlinn General, this story plot hard rocks fierce fiction with a smattering of gritty romance and fairytale. Be warned it is hard to put down from start to finish - with or without a viking’s drinking horn of mead!
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